Kitabı oku: «Farnham's Travels in the Great Western Prairies, etc., May 21-October 16, 1839, part 1», sayfa 17

So saying, he spurred his weary animal to a trot, and was soon hidden among the underbrush of the intervales. Meek was evidently very poor. He had scarcely clothing enough to cover his body; and while talking with us, the frosty winds which sucked up the valley, made him shiver like an aspen leaf. He reverted to his destitute situation, and complained of the injustice of his former employers, the little remuneration he had received for the toils and dangers he had endured on their account, &c., a complaint which I had heard from every trapper whom I had met on my journey. The valley opened wider as we pursued our way along its northern side; the soil, the water, and vegetation much the same in quantity and quality as those which we had passed on the 27th. The mountains on either hand spread into rocky precipitous ridges, piled confusedly one above another in dark threatening masses. Among them hung, in beautiful wildness from the crevices of the cliffs, numerous shrub cedars.

The mountain flax was very abundant and ripe. The root resembled that of perennial plants, the fibres that of the annual blue-bowl of the States, the flower the same, the seed vessel the same; but the seeds themselves were much smaller, and of a very dark brown colour. This valley is the grain-field and root-garden of the Shoshonie Indians; for there grow in it a number of kinds of edible roots, which they dig in August, and dry for winter use. There is also here a kind of grass, bearing a seed of half the size of the common rye, and similar in form. This they also gather, and parch and store away in leather sacks, for the season of want. These Indians had been gathering in their roots, &c., a few days previous to our arrival. I was informed, however, that the crop was barely sufficient to subsist them while harvesting it. But, in order to prevent their enemies from finding whatever might have escaped their own search, they had burned over large sections of the most productive part. This day's ride was estimated at thirty miles. Our camp at night was in a dense copse of black alders by the water-side. Ate our last meat for supper – no prospect of getting more until we should arrive at Fort Hall, four days' ride.

29th. Up with the sun and on march. After an hour's ride, we came upon Meek's white horse. He came to us on as fast a gallop, and with as noisy a neighing as if Zimmerman had never dipt his quill in solitude, and wrote the laws for destroying nature, for nature's good. Jim now put spur to his noble animal, with the regularity of the march of the tread-mill. And, by way of apology for his haste, pointed to the ground, and laying his head on one shoulder, and snoring, said, "u – gh, ugh," which being interpreted, meant that our next snoring place was a very, very long day's journey away. And one acquainted with Indian firmness, would have read in his countenance, while making this communication, a determination to reach it before nightfall, whatever might be the consequences. And so we did. At sunset our camp kettle was bubbling over the bones of a pelican at the "Steamboat spring." The part of the valley seen to-day was generally covered with a stout coat of bunch grass. This, and other indications, led me to suppose it fertile. Yet it appeared questionable if it would yield the ordinary fruits of agriculture without being irrigated.¹⁷⁶

I noticed, however, during the day's ride, a number of points at which the waters of the river might be conducted over very large tracts of excellent soil. The scarcity of fencing timber appeared an obstacle, certainly; but other than this, there seemed to me no considerable cause of doubt that the valley of the Great Bear River will, in the course of time, become one of the most prosperous abodes of cultivated life. Its situation, so remote from either ocean, only increases our expectation of such an event, when it is recollected that the most practicable waggon route between the States and Oregon Territory and the Californias, runs through it.

The north end of the Great Salt Lake is thirty miles from our present encampment, and the mountains on the borders of the valley are more abrupt and craggy, the water of the stream more abundant, and the soil more productive, than in the part already described. A number of creeks also entering the main stream from the East, open up among the black heights a number of lesser and charming vales; and around the union of the river with the Lake are excellent water, soil and timber, under skies of perpetual spring. Of the Lake itself I heard much from different individuals who had visited different portions of its coast.

The substance of their statements, in which they all agree, is that it is about two hundred miles long, eighty or one hundred wide; the water exceedingly heavy; and so salt, say they in their simple way, that pieces of wood dipped in it and dried in the sun are thickly frosted with pure white salt; that its coasts are generally composed of swells of sand and barren brown loam, on which sufficient moisture does not fall to sustain any other vegetation than the wild wormwood and prickly pear; that all attempts to go round it in canoes have, after a day or two of trial, been abandoned for want of fresh water; that the Great Bear River is the only considerable stream putting into it; that high land is seen near the centre of it; – but whether this be an island or a long peninsula there was a difference of opinion among my informants. The valleys of the Great Bear River and its tributaries, as well as the northern portion of the Lake, are supposed to be within the territory of the States.¹⁷⁷

The immediate neighbourhood of our encampment is one of the most remarkable in the Rocky Mountains. The facts that the trail to Oregon and California will for ever of necessity, pass within three hundred yards of the place where our camp fire is burning; that near this spot must be erected a resting-place for the long lines of caravans between the harbours of the Pacific and the waters of the Missouri, would of themselves interest all who are witnessing the irresistible movements of civilization upon the American continent. But this spot has other objects of interest: its Geology and its Mineralogy, and I might well say the Chemistry of it, (for there are laboratories and gases here in the greatest profusion), will hereafter occupy the attention of the lovers of these sciences. The Soda Springs, called by the fur traders Beer Springs, are the most remarkable objects of the kind within my knowledge. They are situated on the north-west side of the river, a few rods below a grove of shrub cedars, and about two hundred yards from the shore. There are six groups of them; or in other words, there are six small hollows sunken about two feet below the ground around, of circular form, seven or eight feet in diameter, in which are a number of fountains sending up large quantities of gas and water, and emitting a noise resembling the boiling of immense cauldrons. These pools are usually clear, with a gravelly bottom. In some of them, however, grow bogs or hassocks of coarse grass, among which are many little wells, where the water bubbled so merrily that I was tempted to drink at one of them. But as I proceeded to do so, the suffocating properties of the gas instantly drove me from my purpose. After this rebuff, however, I made another attempt at a more open fountain, and drank with little difficulty.

The waters appeared to be more highly impregnated with soda and acid than those of Saratoga; were extremely pleasant to the taste, and fumed from the stomach like the soda water of the shops. Some of them threw off at least four gallons of gas a second. And although they cast up large masses of water continually, for which there appeared no outlet, yet at different times of observation I could perceive no increase or diminution of the quantity visible. There are five or six other springs in the bank of the river just below, the waters of which resemble those I have described. One of them discharges about forty gallons a minute.

One fourth of a mile down stream from the Soda Spring, is what is called "The Steamboat Spring." The orifice from which it casts its water is in the face of a perpendicular rock on the brink of the stream, which seems to have been formed by the depositions of the fountain. It is eight inches in diameter. Six feet from this, and on the horizontal plane of the rock, is another orifice in the cavern below. On approaching the spring, a deep gurgling, hissing sound is heard underground. It appears to be produced by the generating of gas in a cavernous receiver. This, when the chamber is filled, bursts through another cavern filled with water, which it thrusts frothing and foaming into the stream. In passing the smaller orifice, the pent gas escapes with very much the same sound as steam makes in the escape-pipe of a steamboat. Hence the name. The periods of discharge are very irregular. At times, they occur once in two, at others, once in three, four or five minutes. The force of its action also is subject to great variation. Those who have been there, often say that its noise has been heard to echo far among the hills. When I visited it I could not hear it at the distance of two hundred yards. There is also said to be a difference at different times in the temperature of the water. When I examined it, it was a little above blood heat. Others have seen it much higher.

The most remarkable phenomenon connected with these springs, remains yet to be noticed. The whole river, from the Steamboat spring to the Soda Springs, (a distance of more than a fourth of a mile), is a sheet of springs, thousands in number, which bursting through two feet of superincumbent running water, throw their foaming jets, some six inches, and some less, above the surface. The water is much the same in its constituent qualities, as that of the Soda springs.¹⁷⁸

There are in the immediate vicinity of the Steamboat Spring, and on the opposite side of the river numerous rocks with orifices in their centres, and other evidences of having been formed by intermittent springs that have long ago ceased to act.

The scenery around these wonderful fountains, is very wild. To the east north-east, opens up the upper valley of Great Bear River, walled in on either side by dark primitive mountains, beetling over the vale, and towering on the sky. To the south south-west sweeps away the lower valley. – On either side of it rise lofty mountains of naked rocks, the wild sublimity of which contrasts strikingly with the sweet beauty of the stream and vale below.

Although statements in regard to what shall transpire in the future, are always a work more befitting a seer than a journalist, yet I cannot forbear expressing the belief that the healthiness and beauty of their locality – the magnificence of the scenery on the best routes to them from the States and from the Pacific, the manifest superiority of these waters over any others, will cause "The Soda Springs" to be thronged with the gay and fashionable of both sides of the continent.

30th. Our sleep had been interrupted at midnight by the blazing fires of an Indian encampment on a neighbouring hill. And once awakened by such a cause, the tracks of a war party, probably of Blackfeet, which we had crossed during the day, were sufficient to put us on duty the remainder of the night. At early dawn, we saddled and moved in silence a few hundred yards down the river, turned to the right around the Bute in the rear of the Steamboat spring, entered the "Valley of chasms," and soon brought the mountains on its northern border, between us and our suspicious neighbours.

This valley derives its name from the numerous cracks or chasms in the volcanic rocks on which it rests. They are so wide and deep that the natives, for many miles at the lower part of it, have been obliged to run their trail over the lower swells of the hills on its north-western side. Up this trail Jim rode on a brisk trot, beckoning us, in an ominous manner to follow, and keep in a body near him. The "cut rock" and scoriæ lay every where, and crippled the poor animals at almost every step. Onward he led us, with all the speed which the severest inflictions of spur and whip could produce, till the shutting in of night deposited us among the willows on the stream of the valley, forty miles from our last night's encampment. The rapidity of our travelling to-day, allowed me little time to examine this singular valley. I noticed merely that it was, like the intervales of Bear River, covered with bunch-grass, which the thirsty suns of summer had dried to hay. A curious gas spring also attracted my attention about nine o'clock in the morning. Its bubbling and its beautiful reservoir appeared to arouse the admiration even of my dogged guide Jim: he halted to look at it. Jim, for the first time since I had had the honour of his acquaintance, absolutely stopped to look at, and admire a portion of the earth. It was a fine specimen of Nature's masonry. The basin was about six feet in diameter; the bottom a circular horizontal plane; around the edge rose a rim or flanche, eight inches in height; all one solid rock. In the centre of the bottom arose the gas and water: the latter was six inches deep, limpid, and slightly acid. This fountain was situated a few rods to the right of the trail.

31st. We took to our saddles, and in three hours reached the foot of the mountains which divide the "Valley of chasms" from Snake River. There is a wide depression through the heights here of so gentle a declination, that loaded waggons can pass from one valley to the other without difficulty. Up this we turned. It was covered with green grass and shrubs and trees, among which a little brook was whispering to the solitude.¹⁷⁹

The small birds, too, were chirping among the bright flowers and bending boughs; and on either hand, as if to guard so much loveliness from the winds of surrounding desolation, the black crags rose and frowned one thousand five hundred feet in air. But hunger!! Every bud was fed; every bird had its nourishment; the lizards even were not starving. We were. When about half way up the gorge, one of Smith's horses tired and refused to go farther. The fellow's wound, received in the plains, had healed; and with strength from time to time, his petty tyranny towards his animals increased till being entirely recovered, he seemed to have resumed a degree of malignity towards them whenever they did not chance to comprehend his wishes, or were unable to comply with them, that would be incredible if described. In this case, he cut a strong goad; and following the slow steps of the worn-out animal, struck her lengthwise over the almost denuded ribs as frequently and as long as he had strength to do it; and then would rest and strike again with renewed vengeance, until his beast dropped her head and received his blows without a movement. Remonstrance, and the astonished gazing of my savage guide, only increased his severity. And thus he continued to beat the poor animal, till, being convinced against his will, that he even could not make a dying horse heed his command, he bestowed upon her a farewell kick and curse and left her.

About four o'clock we stood on the high ground which divides the waters of the little brook which we had followed up, from a small head stream of Portneuf. The valley of the great southern branch of the Columbia, was spread out before us. Slaking our thirst at a cool spring, we travelled five miles down the mountain, and encamped in sight of the Trois Butes.¹⁸⁰ When we halted, I was too much exhausted with hunger and fatigue to unsaddle my horse. We had been on short allowance most of the time since leaving Fort David Crockett. The day on which we arrived at the Soda Springs, I ate the eighth part of a pelican; the two last past days, nothing. But I suffered less from the gnawings of hunger than I had on the previous night. A deadly stupor pervaded the gastric and nervous systems; a sluggish action of the heart, a dimness of vision and painful prostration of every energy of life were creeping upon me. After a little rest, however, I crept to the bushes, and after a long search, found two red rosebuds! These I gladly ate, and went to my couch to dream of feasts.

The 1st of September was a fine day. The sun was bright and unclouded, as he came in his strength over the eastern mountains, and awakened us from our slumbers among the alders on the bank of Portneuf. Hunger, indeed, was still gnawing at our vitals. But sleep had banished weariness, and added something to the small stock of our remaining strength; and the recollection of past perils – perils of floods, of tempests, of Indian foes – death threatened at every step during a journey of three months in the plains and mountains – the inspiring view of the vale of the great southern branch of the Columbia, so long promised us in hope along our weary way – the fact that we were in Oregon, unmoored the mind from its anxieties, and shed over us a gladness which can only be comprehended by those who, having suffered as we had, have viewed as we did, from some bright height, their sufferings ended, in the rich, ripe possession of the objects so ardently sought. We were in Oregon. Fort Hall lay in the plain before us. Its hospitalities would be enjoyed ere sunset. Our wardrobes were overhauled, our razors put on duty, our sunburnt frames bathed in the Portneuf; and equipped in our best, our hearts beat joyfully back the rapid clattering of our horses' hoofs on the pavements of the mountains, as we rushed to the plains. An hour among the sands and wild wormwood, an hour among the oozing springs, and green grass around them, an hour along the banks of Saptin River, and we passed a line of timber springing at right angles into the plain; and before us rose the white battlements of Fort Hall!¹⁸¹

As we emerged from this wood, Jim intimated that we should discharge our rifles; and as we did so, a single armed horseman issued from the gate of the Fort approached us warily, and skulking among the copses, scanned us in the most inquisitive manner. Having satisfied himself at last that our skins were originally intended to be white, he came alongside; and learning that we were from the States; that we had no hostile intentions; that we knew Mr. Walker to be in the Fort, and would be glad to have our compliments conveyed to him, he returned; and Mr. Walker immediately appeared.¹⁸² A friendly salutation was followed by an invitation to enter the Fort; and a "welcome to Fort Hall," was given in a manner so kind and obliging, that nothing seemed wanting to make us feel that we were at home. A generous flagon of Old Jamaica, wheaten bread, and butter newly churned, and buffalo tongues fresh from the neighbouring mountains, made their appearance as soon as we had rid ourselves of the equipage and dust of journeying, and allayed the dreadful sense of starvation.

CHAPTER VIII {III}

The Rocky Mountains and their Spurs – Geography of the Mountain Region – Wyeth – The Outset – The Beaver Catcher's Bride – Trois Butes – Addition from a Monastery – Orisons – A Merry Mountain Trapper – Root Diggers – Enormous Springs – Volcanic Hearths and Chasms – Carbo – An old Chief – A Bluff – Boisais River – Incident of Trade – The Bonaks – The Dead Wail – Fort Boisais, its Salmon, Butter and Hearty Cheer – Mons. Payette – Curiosity – Departure – Passing the Blue Mountains – The Grandeur of them – Their Forests, Flowers, and Torrents – Descent of the Mountains – Plain, a Christian Crane – Arrival at Dr. Whitman's Mission – Wallawalla – People – Farm – Mill – Learning – Religion – Mr. Ermitinger – Blair – Nez Percés – Racing – Indian Horse Training – Sabbath and its joys in the Wilderness.

It will not be uninteresting while pausing here, and making preparations to descend Snake, Lewis, or Saptin river,¹⁸³ to lead my readers back over that portion of my journey which lay among the mountains. I do not design to retrace my steps here, however, in order again to attempt a description of sufferings which can never be described. They are past; and let their remembrance die. But a succinct account of the region lying west of the Anahuac ridge, and between latitudes 39° and 42° north – its mountains, its plains, its rivers, &c., will, I persuade myself, be new, and not without interest to the reader.

James' Peak, Pike's Peak, and Long's Peak, may be called the outposts of a lofty range of rocky mountains, which, for convenience in description, I have called Long's Range, extending nearly due north from the Arkansas, in latitude 39°, to the Great Gap in latitude 42° north.¹⁸⁴

The range is unconnected with any other. It is separated from the Wind River Mountains by the Great Gap or Great Southern Pass, and from the Great Anahuac Range by the upper valleys of the Arkansas, those of the South Fork of the Platte, and those of the Green and Grand rivers. Two spurs spring off from it to the west: the one from James' Peak, the other from Long's Peak. These spurs, as they proceed westward, dip lower and lower till they terminate – the first in the rough cliffs around the upper waters of the Arkansas, and the latter in spherical sand-hills around the lower waters of Grand river.¹⁸⁵ The Anahuac Mountains were seen from about latitude 39° to 42° north. This range lies about two hundred miles west of Long's Range, and between latitude 39 and 40°, has a general course of north north-west. It appeared an unbroken ridge of ice and snow, rising in some points, I think, more than fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. From latitude 41° it tends to the north-west by west, past the north-eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake to the northern end of it; and thence westwardly to a point south of Portneuf, where it unites with the range of the Snowy Mountains.

The Snowy Mountains are a transverse range or spur of the Rocky Mountains, which run from the Wind River Mountains, latitude 42° north, in nearly a right line to Cape Mendocino, latitude 40°, in Upper California. Many portions of this range, east as well as west of Fort Hall, are very lofty, and covered with perpetual snow. About one hundred miles from the coast of the Pacific it intersects that range of snowy peaks called the President's Range, which comes down from Puget's sound, and terminates in the arid plains about the mouth of the Colorado of the West.¹⁸⁶

The Wind River Mountains are a spur which shoots from the great northern chain, commonly called the Rocky Mountains, in latitude 42° and odd minutes north; and running in a south-easterly direction into the Great Prairie Wilderness, forms the northern wall of the Great Gap or Great Southern Pass.¹⁸⁷

On the northern side of the Wind River Peaks, are the sources of Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers;¹⁸⁸ on the south-eastern side rises the Sweetwater, the north-western-most branch of the North Fork of the Great Platte; on the southern side the Sheetskadee or Green river, the northern branch of the Colorado of the West; on the north-western side and north of the Snowy Mountains, spring down the Saptin, Snake, or Lewis river, the great southern branch of the Columbia.

On the western side of Long's Range, rises the Grand river, the principal branch of the Colorado of the West.¹⁸⁹ It furnishes four times the quantity of water that Green river does. Further south, in the vicinity of James' Peak, and on the west side of this range, rises the South Fork of the Great Platte.¹⁹⁰

Close under the eastern base of the Anahuac or Great Main Ridge, and nearly in latitude 39½° north, are the sources of the Arkansas.

The immense parallelogram lying within these ranges of mountains, may be described by saying that it is a desert of arid plains and minor mountains. And if this general appellation be qualified by the accounts given on previous pages of Boyou Salade, Old Park, &c. very small portions of the whole area, the description will be complete.

Fort Hall was built by Captain Wyeth, of Boston in 1832, for the purposes of trade with the Indians in its vicinity. He had taken goods into the lower part of the Territory, to exchange for salmon. But competition soon drove him from his fisheries to this remote spot, where he hoped to be permitted to purchase furs of the Indians without being molested by the Hudson's Bay Company, whose nearest post was seven hundred miles away.¹⁹¹

In this he was disappointed. In pursuance of the avowed doctrine of that company, that no others have a right to trade in furs west of the Rocky Mountains, whilst the use of capital and their incomparable skill and perseverance can prevent it, they established a fort near him, preceded him, followed him, surrounded him every where, and cut the throat of his prosperity with such kindness, and politeness, that Wyeth was induced to sell his whole interest, existent and prospective, in Oregon, to his generous but too indefatigable, skilful, and powerful antagonists.

From what I saw and heard of Wyeth's management in Oregon, I was impressed with the belief that he was, beyond comparison, the most talented business-man from the States that ever established himself in the Territory.

The business of this post consists in exchanging blankets, ammunition, guns, tobacco, &c., with the neighbouring Indians, for the skins of the beaver and land otter; and in furnishing white men with traps, horses, saddles, bridles, provisions, &c., to enable them to hunt these animals for the benefit and sole use of the owners, the Hudson's Bay Company. In such cases the horses are borrowed without price; the other articles of the "outfit" sold on credit till the termination of the hunt; and the only security which the Company requires for the return of their animals, is the pledge of honour to that effect, and that the furs taken shall be appropriated at a stipulated price to the payment of arrears.

Goods are sold at this establishment fifty per cent lower than at the American posts. White trappers are paid a higher price for their furs than is paid the Indians; are charged less for the goods which they receive in exchange; and are treated in every respect by this shrewd Company with such uniform justice, that the American trappers even are fast leaving the service of their countrymen, for the larger profits and better treatment of British employment. There is also a company of men connected with this Fort, under the command of an American mountaineer, who, following various tribes in their migratory expeditions in the adjacent American and Mexican domain, collect whatever furs may chance to be among them.

By these means, and various others subsidiary to them, the gentlemen in charge of this trading establishment, collected, in the summer of 1839, more than thirty packs of the best beaver of the mountains.

We spent the 2nd and 3rd most agreeably with Mr. Walker, in his hospitable adobie castle; exchanged with him our wearied horses for fresh ones; and obtained dried buffalo meat, sugar, cocoa, tea, and corn meal, a guide, and every other necessary within that gentleman's power to furnish for our journey to Wallawalla. And at ten o'clock, A. M., of the 4th of September, we bade adieu to our very obliging countryman, and took to our saddles on the trail down the desert banks of the Saptin. As we left the Fort, we passed over the ground of an affray, which originated in love and terminated in death. Yes, love on the western declivity of the Rocky Mountains! and love of a white man for an Indian dame!

It appeared that a certain white trapper had taken to himself a certain bronze damsel of the wilderness to be his slave-wife, with all the solemn ceremonies of purchase and payment for the same in sundry horses, dogs, and loads of ammunition, as required by the custom in such affairs governing; and that by his business of trapping for beaver, &c., he was, soon after the banns were proclaimed, separated from his beloved one, for the term of three months and upwards, much against his tender inclination and interest, as the following showeth: for during the terms of his said absence, another white man, with intent to injure, &c., spoke certain tender words unto the said trapper's slave-wife, which had the effect to alienate from him the purchased and rightfully possessed affections of his slave-spouse, in favour of her seducer. In this said condition did the beaver-catcher find his bride when he came in from the hunt. He loaded his rifle, and killed the robber of his heart. The grave of the victim is there – a warning to all who would trifle with the vested rights of an American trapper in the love of an Indian beauty.

We made about ten miles, and halted for the night. Our guide displayed himself a five feet nine inch stout Wallawalla.¹⁹² He had been in the service of the Hudson Bay Company many years, and was consequently assiduous and dutiful. Yes, consequently so; for neither Indian nor white man is long in their service without learning his place, and becoming active and faithful in doing his duty. As soon as we entered camp, our pack-horses were stripped of their burdens, and turned loose to feed; wood was gathered, and a fire blazing under the kettles, and "all out door" immediately rendered as comfortable to us, as skies spangled with stars, and earth strewn with snowy sand could be made. Wallawalla was a jolly oddity of a mortal. The frontal region of his head had been pressed in infancy most aristocratically into the form of the German idiots; his eyes were forced out upon the corners of the head; his nose hugged the face closely like a bunch of affectionate leeches; hair black as a raven, and flowing over a pair of herculean shoulders; and feet – but who can describe that which has not its like under the skies. Such was Carbo, our Palinurus over the burnt plains of Snake River.